Are Publishers Too Reliant On Facebook?

By
Admin /
Published on Wednesday, 13 May 2015 02:52 AM /
Comments Off on Are Publishers Too Reliant On Facebook?
/ 768 views

Editors at multiple well-established websites, including the popular Gawker, Vice and Mashabe have observes something was off with their usual Facebook dealings. On May 1, they found out that the story links they posted to Facebook all vanished which has caused readership to decline as well.

The problem surfaced 10 days prior to changes made by the social networking juggernaut, Facebook, in its algorithm for the “news feed” — the stream of posts users see—and warned that other sites may notice their Web traffic drop as a result. After several calls by web publishers to the headquarters of Facebook, it became more apparent that a coding glitch and not an intentional act is what caused the problem. The swift response of Facebook resulted to the issue being resolved in just a little over 30 minutes, according to an official of one of the website affected.

Despite this, the event supports the notion how online publishers have relied so heavily on Facebook in carrying out their tasks. The social networking site has offered an opportunity for these companies to take advantage of the millions of Facebook users to generate traffic in their own websites. This shows their vulnerability to even the minor changes made on face book’s time line.

Reports suggest that Facebook will start publishing content from traditional brands in the magazine and newspaper publishing sectors, such as New York Times, National Geographic as well as BuzzFeed instead of linking them to their own websites has cause a bit of stir to everyone. As onlookers continue to wait for an official response from Facebook, the public remains puzzled.

Apart from typical readers, publishers are also picking hair, waiting for details regarding the plan. The absence of any official statement from Facebook has also caused more mystery to the whole waiting game. According to officials of various publishing companies, they believe that the social networking site can help them in reaching out to the growing mobile advertising market. A trend, which is set to dominate other mediums of promulgating information in the next couple of years.

While new websites are having a hard time making money by catering to the mobile audience, Facebook is going against all odds by selling more mobile ads to interested entities. The company accounted for at least 35% of the mobile display advertising market while its greatest rival in such aspect, google, registers at 12%. This report came from eMarketer. Despite Facebook’s success in mobile display advertising, Google is still number one when it comes to search and other forms of mobile advertising. The search giant had 37% of the market while only 18% went to Facebook.